wish i knew how to break this spell
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: collection of captain swan drabbles and prompt-fics from tumblr; comedy, tragedy, alternate universe, fluff, angst, and everything in-between.
1. baby it's cold outside

**a/n**: i caved and decided to make a master-fic for all the random prompts and drabbles from tumblr that haven't yet jumped over here. also, i use the word 'all' loosely here because there's. there's a _lot._

from profilerchick: _I don't know if you're taking prompts: but I was decorating a tree with my mom outside just now and listening to Dean Martin's It's Cold Outside and I couldn't get the image of Hook trying to keep Emma in because a storm had hit Storybrooke or NYork and I just.. I need it. Please?_

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—_wish i knew how to break this spell_

_Wow,_ she shouldn't have had that last glass of rum: not only had it pushed her firmly onto the "shitfaced" side of the drunk scale, but staying to drink it had given the threatening blizzard time to dig its heels in and strongly suggest that she would be staying on the _Jolly Roger_ tonight.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, since Henry was staying with Regina and her parents were… otherwise occupied and probably wouldn't notice that she wasn't home (and _god,_ but she felt like a teenager thinking of it like that — she really, really, _really _needed to get her own place, _jeez),_ but at the same time…

Waiting out a blizzard on Hook's ship in Hook's cabin with Hook while both of them had been drinking hit upon _something_ in her brain that screamed _terrible idea_.

"It's snowing like mad out there, love," he was saying, and she blinked heavily, still trying to stand and tugging her jacket around her shoulders.

"I's not much warmer in here," she countered belligerently because it _wasn't_ because of course a bloody _pirate ship_ wouldn't have central heating, _Christ,_ this wouldn't be a problem if she had her own place where she and Hook could drink themselves stupid in peace and warmth and solitude.

"Well, my dear, there _are_ ways of counteracting that particular… conundrum," he replied, smirking, and she rolled her eyes, somewhat unconvincingly.

"Yeah, I'm getting you a space heater," she grumbled, still making for the door because _terrible idea_, but he stood up and caught her, all amusement falling away.

"I'm serious, Emma, it's a long way back to your apartment."

"I can drive," she slurred, and he blinked.

"No. No, you can't," he said bluntly. "You can hardly _walk._ I'll not let you leave in this state."

_"You,"_ she snapped with damp force, trying to bat his hand off her arm and poking him in the chest, "don't tell me what to do."

He growled. "Bloody hell, woman, you'll get yourself _killed_ going out there now."

"So, what, I'm s'posed to jus' _stay_ here?"

"In a word?" he answered sharply. "Yes."

"It's _freezing_ in here," she whined, teeth chattering and hands, almost of their own accord, working their way into his shirt to leach off of his body heat (it was his own damn fault, she rationalized, for wearing such a low-cut shirt while having a chest); he flinched at the cold but didn't push her away.

He just gave her a _look,_ like he didn't want to come out and say it, but the solution was still _really really obvious_.

It wasn't that she was, strictly speaking, opposed to spending the night with him, or even with the risk of other things happening; it was just that she was drunk and didn't trust her drunk self and _really_ didn't like the thought of doing the walk of shame from a goddamn _pirate ship_ in the morning.

There was also that bizarre fear that was always lurking when she was around Hook, that each moment she spent around him, he wormed his way a little deeper under her skin (and much deeper, and much faster, when they were alone like this), that he had already made his way through her chest and into her heart and that wasn't _safe,_ even now.

But more than both of them — at this drunken moment, anyway — was the belligerent desire to make him fight for it.

She couldn't help it. It was just such a novel concept, someone jumping when she said jump and actively courting her like an old-school gentleman.

(Someone thinking she was worth fighting for.)

_"Jesus,_ Hook, I can — " she huffed, trying to peel herself away from him but failing, staggering as the rum reasserted itself and semi-falling right back into his arms.

"You can what now?" he countered softly, and she shot him a weak glare.

"Take care of myself," she grumbled, but they both knew it was bullshit.

"Right," he said brightly, stepping back and leaving her swaying. "If you can walk to the door unassisted, I'll say no more."

She scoffed, with more confidence than she felt… confidence that turned out to, embarrassingly, be completely unfounded, as she made it about two steps before stumbling against the table; the only reason she didn't hit the floor was because he caught her by the elbow and pulled her closer again.

"As I said," he murmured, altogether too close and too warm, "you'll only get yourself killed going out there like this, my love._Stay._ I promise," he added, breath hot against her ear and smirk _audible_ in his tone, "I'll keep the wandering hands to a minimum."

She blinked and tried to figure what sounded _off_ about his words, settling finally on the plural "hands."

"Fine," she replied petulantly, staggering around to face him again._"Fine."_

The smile he gave her was amused and fond and captivating made him look strikingly _young_ and she glared at him for it because he was _Captain Hook_, and Captain Hook shouldn't ever look so goddamn _adorable._

"Asshole," she muttered (for reasons that had nothing to do with his insistence that she stay), scowling in a way that only made him laugh.

"Call me what you like, my dear," he said, as he guided her to the bed. "You'll thank me in the morning."

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"Why the hell did you let me have that last drink?" she whined, turning away from the downright _cruel_ sunlight streaming through the windows and burying her face into his chest.

"All part of my evil plan," he replied in a sleepy deadpan. "Have you falling into my arms at last."

"I hate you."

"You're welcome."

She sighed; it was too damn cold, she told herself, and too damn warm here under the covers and in his arms (and she was too damn hungover, anyway), to justify leaving in protest.

His arm tightened around her and his hand found itself rising up to tangle in her hair, causing a contented purr to traitorously leave her throat; he snickered deep in his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

He was going too far, she thought determinedly. With the cuddling and the kissing and the cuddling and the concern and the cuddling and the making her feel safe and content and warm and the _cuddling_ and _dammit._

"This is all your fault," she murmured sleepily.

"Of course it is, dear." She felt him smiling. "My _deepest_ apologies for summoning the blizzard, it was ungentlemanly of me."

She scowled uselessly, trying _very hard_ not to be amused, and kicked him in the shin. "It's too early for your sarcasm, jackass."

"And a good morning to you too."

"Why do I like you?" she growled, and his fingers caressed the back of her head in a way that made her purr involuntarily again and shift closer.

"Emma Swan, admitting that she enjoys my company?" he said, falsely-aghast. "You're suffering from _quite_ the hangover, aren't you, love?"

She groaned and burrowed further into him.

"And," he added softly, words dimly filtering in through the haze of sleep reclaiming her, "you like me because I care for you when you refuse to care for yourself."

"Stop that," she mumbled. It was a moment before he responded, almost too quiet to be heard.

"Never."


	2. clothes shopping

prompt from anon: _the one where emma takes killian shopping for new clothes_

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—_one asks oneself, 'do trousers matter?'_

This was _such_ a waste of time.

This mission was a _really_ big deal and time was starting to run _really_ short and she _really_ wanted to get back home (although an impromptu vacation in New York with Hook and Henry had turned out to be bizarrely fun, when it wasn't unbelievably stressful, especially when Henry had decided that it was his duty to give Hook a crash course in the Land Without Magic that was going, by turns, remarkably well and dangerously terrible), but it had gotten to the point of being untenable.

Half of it was the shady looks he'd been getting from suspicious, pearl-clutching sorts of sixty-somethings, and half of it was the appreciative-to-the-point-of-distraction looks from the younger set (and maybe a tiny bit was morbid curiosity), but the tipping point was when he — in front of _Henry,_ no less — was offered a job by a woman who ran a… _business_ that catered to the sort of people who sought out men in tight leather.

"All right," she'd declared, dragging him away while trying to cover Henry's ears, "we're going clothes shopping."

He'd glanced at her, eyebrow raised. "Should I be concerned?"

Before Emma could say no, this was going to be quick and painless (if it was the last damn thing she did), Henry had chimed in with a gleefully ominous, "Yes. Yes, you should."

It had gone downhill from there, mostly because Henry had taken it upon himself to orchestrate Hook's makeover.

If Emma had had her way (she pretended), she would have just gotten him a pair of jeans and a pack of t-shirts at the closest Sears and called it a day, but Henry's philosophy was, _we don't know how long he's going to be in this world, so he should have more than one outfit and _come on_, we're in _New York_, Mom, we should take advantage of that_, and she really didn't understand how that had actually convinced her, except that she was _deeply,_ unwillingly curious about what clothing Hook would allow Henry to get him into.

(She'd been torn between "overgrown goth teenager" with the tight jeans and dramatic shirt-jacket combos and "high-end shady mobster" with black button-downs and waistcoats and slacks.)

(The high-end shady mobster one was turning out to be pretty close.)

"It's a costume for a play," she told the shop assistant (who seemed far more interested in the contents of the leather pants than the reasons for them; she determined to ignore the spike of dark jealousy the girl with the measuring tape inspired). "But all of his clothes are back in Boston because _someone_ is terrible at packing."

She really hoped he would pick up the slack; to her eternal gratitude, he did. "Wouldn't have been an issue if you hadn't been shoving me out the door, love," he said airily, shooting her an amused smirk.

(The sort of smirk that just _knew_ she was seething with jealousy underneath her casual exterior.)

(Asshole.)

"So, I think you should get a blue vest," Fashion-Designer-And-Who-Knew?-Henry said, coming around with his arms full of different suit pieces. "You know, 'cause you have blue eyes."

"I agree," the shop assistant said _(entirely_ too quickly).

He blinked.

"I prefer red."

"Get both," Emma offered, shrugging with casual indifference. _(Jesus,_ he would look good in re—_no stop_.) "You'll need more than one anyway."

(Meanwhile, he shop assistant was taking her _sweet damn time _measuring his waist, to the point that even _Henry_ was starting to notice.)

"Why don't you try it on," she said loudly, startling the girl into letting go, embarrassed. Emma shot her a glare, beyond caring about the fact that she looked like a jealous girlfriend — hell, everyone already assumed the three of them were a family, may as well work it.

He looked through the clothes Henry had pulled out, picking a loose-fitting button-down, in black (obviously), and the darkest blue vest in the lot, eyeing the dress pants with mild distaste but finally relenting and going into the changing room with a dramatic eye-roll.

_Oh, dramatize,_ she thought. He was _enjoying_ this, all the attention from the assistant and obvious-even-as-she-tried-in-vain-to-hide-it resentment at said attendant from Emma and (which warmed even her heart a little bit) the eager help and interest from Henry.

(And underneath the ego fluffing, he was undoubtedly happy to feel like he was part of the family everyone mistook them for, the casual domesticity of clothes-shopping he'd probably forgotten the feel of.)

She blinked when he walked out.

Maybe she just had a _thing_ for sharp-dressed men; maybe it was the way the blue vest brought out his eyes, bright even at a distance; maybe it was just that it was unexpected, but _holy shit_.

"See? I told you blue would look good," Henry said smugly, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was the only one capable of speech.

"I'm not particularly attached to the trousers," he replied, crossing his arms; a quick glance at the assistant said that the exact same thought had just crossed both of their minds (_then let's get you out of them_) and, in spite of her grudge with the girl, she felt an odd sort of kinship at that moment.

"We can try something a little more casual," the assistant said faintly. "We have some five-pocket pants, they're a little more in your… style."

While she went looking for suitable pants, Hook — _Jesus,_ he'd left the top few buttons undone as she _should_ have _expected_ and _prepared herself_ for but it was _just_ — watched Emma in increasing, silent, _smirking_ amusement, and Henry rummaged through the clothes again for a red vest.

"Here, try this one while we're waiting on her."

_Yes,_ she thought traitorously, _yes_ do _try this one_.

They ended up with a couple of outfits with vests in a couple of colors (all muted, because, effort to change for the better be damned, he was still Captain Hook and he still shunned bright colors), all of which, she felt, might actually turn _more_ heads than the leather.

"All right, let's get back to work," she declared, busying herself with shoving the (harrowing) receipt into the bag to regain control of her thoughts.

(She was pretty sure that the assistant took a few surreptitious pictures with her phone, which would have been a bit offensive except she, like any red-blooded female or so-inclined male probably would have done the same thing in her position.)

"If you can focus," Hook replied in a low, seductive voice, too close to her ear and _way_ too obvious to be working as well as it was, and she shot him a completely-unconvincing glare.

_"Please,"_ she muttered, rolling her eyes, but couldn't come up with a great retort because he'd put the leather jacket back on and the whole thing _worked,_ lending him a sort of dangerous, mysterious aura that was just _unfair._

"Told you this was a good idea," Henry said happily.

Emma wasn't entirely sure she agreed.


	3. inconceivable

from talk floating around tumblr — westley vs. killian

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_—the one where emma loves the princess bride_

She had certainly thought of it before — how could she not, the Princess Bride was one of her favorite movies, Westley was her first crush, the words "as you wish" were inextricably tied to it — but only as a passing whim, _oh wouldn't that be funny, the man in black, the dread pirate, ha-ha_, but then she started _really_ thinking about it.

Obviously, he was a pirate who wore all black and used the phrase "as you wish" often enough (albeit not, she fervently hoped, in the same way Westley did), and he was a man of action and somewhat more subtly a man of honor, and he possessed single-minded determination when he had a goal, and he could be very intimidating when he wanted to be, and he was extremely charming (she could just _hear_ him saying that "shortage of perfect breasts" line), and at the core he was entirely motivated by love, and…

And Red Riding Hood was also the Big Bad Wolf and Rumplestiltskin was also the Beast…

She just couldn't figure out how to confirm it.

Or who was supposed to be Buttercup.

(Or, more accurately, who was supposed to be the beautiful, bold, broken blonde woman who became a princess late in life after spending a long time just going through the motions _who was most definitely not her_.)

There were also shades of Inigo, in the devoted-and-spending-a-very-very-long-time-preparing-to-avenge-the-murder-of-a-loved-one thing, and the obviously-rehearsed speech he'd given Gold when he'd stabbed him (although it wasn't _quite_ as epic as Inigo's, but that was probably asking too much anyway).

(And Inigo took up the mantle of the Dread Pirate Roberts after Westley gave it up _so he could be with Buttercup_ and _no.)_

No, she had to be wrong. _Had_ to be wrong.

So maybe she decided to rewatch the movie with Mary Margaret in the hope of proving herself wrong, an endeavor which had utterly failed and, in fact, was having much the opposite effect.

"You know, it's funny," Mary Margaret mused slowly, after the 'to the pain' speech. "Westley kind of reminds me of Hook."

_Goddammit._

"Eh," she replied, shrugging. "He doesn't have a Buttercup. You can't have Westley without Buttercup."

Mary Margaret looked at her for a moment, biting her lip like she was thinking hard about something, before finally turning away and saying _(clearly_ lying), "No. No, I guess not."

She watched her mother in increasingly-worried suspicion. "That didn't sound convincing," she said bluntly, and Mary Margaret blinked, shrugging.

"No, you're right," she said, still a _terrible_ liar. "He wouldn't give up piracy for anyone, or navigate a dangerous jungle or fire swamp just to help someone else, or… consistently say 'as you wish', or…"

"What exactly are you saying?" she snapped, and Mary Margaret held her hands up in supplication.

"Just… You know, Rumplestiltskin is also the Beast, there _is_ a precedent…"

"Can this conversation be over now?" she muttered darkly, glaring at her mother, who stood up and cleared away the bowl of popcorn and empty mugs they'd worked their way through.

"As you wish."

Emma scowled.


	4. candlelight

no prompt this time, this just came up and slapped me. i also want to point out that the pirate stories are real, reasonably obscure fictional pirates from 19th-century stories (so in the same rough genre/time period as captain hook).

i want to point this out because finding stories that a) killian would be interested in and actually tell, b) involved pirates as the heroes, and c) were not immediately recognizable was hard as _hell._

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—_better to light a candle than curse the darkness_

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A lamp was on. _Goddammit._

Emma hesitated and almost turned back around — there were no words for how much she didn't want to deal with her parents right now — but decided to power forward on the hope that maybe one of them had just forgotten to turn it off, or…

"Couldn't sleep?"

…or she had forgotten that Killian was sleeping on their couch.

_Right,_ she thought, blizzard, no heat on his ship, David's badly-hidden man-crush on him rearing its head and causing him to insist that he stay with them until it warmed up some. Right.

"No," she replied, running a hand through her hair and busying herself with microwaving a cup of cocoa (she was so tired she didn't even bother to fish out the cinnamon, just threw a packet of Swiss Miss into it and called it a night). The distraction only gave her a couple of minutes, but, even though she didn't turn around, she could feel him watching her the whole time.

For a moment, she considered just standing at the counter and drinking her cocoa in awkward silence, if only because her parents were asleep literally twenty feet away from the couch and not in their own room or _anything_ (and who the hell had approved _that _house plan anyway?) and curling up on the couch with Killian and a cup of hot chocolate was a little… _intimate_ wasn't quite the right word, but _domestic_, maybe. (Which, between the two of them, _was _intimacy, and probably more so than the common implication of that word.)

But she was kidding herself if she thought she could stay away from him.

Killian raised an eyebrow when she walked around to the couch and swatted his feet aside so she could sit down.

"Couldn't sleep either?"

He laughed a bit and replied, somewhat darkly, "Sleep rarely deigns to visit me these days, love."

"And so you've decided to spend your time reading… what is that, _Treasure Island_?" she asked, tilting her head to peer at the cover and then paused, making a face. "Of course it is."

"I _had_ intended to read your story about Peter Pan, but it appears that someone has… _removed_ all copies the library had," he drawled. "The librarian suggested that I not inquire further."

Emma raised an eyebrow, but decided not to ask either; after their adventures in Neverland and after, any number of people could have been behind that.

"Yeah, you probably wouldn't enjoy it too much," she said, leaning heavily into the couch. "Although the book version of Hook _was_ a little more accurate than the cartoon."

"Than the what, now?"

"Cartoon," she repeated, and opened her mouth to explain but drew a blank as to how. "It's… um. People draw pictures and put them one after another, and… you end up with a sort of… moving illustration? Does that make sense?"

He shrugged. "No less than anything else of this world."

The way he said it, and the slight wistfulness in his tone, and — the guy was reading _Treasure Island_, oh for god's sake, he was _homesick_— all left her feeling a little melancholy herself.

It was the first indication he'd given that he didn't feel like he belonged in this world; usually, he carried himself with such confidence and that blasé, untouchable attitude, like the fact that he didn't fit in was everyone else's problem — it was convincing, _very_ convincing.

Even she hadn't noticed it.

(On the other hand, she'd had more than enough on her mind already… which, in retrospect, might have had something to do with his determination to hide it.)

"We'll have to show you some," she said awkwardly, hiding her wince into her mug. "But not _Peter Pan_. I won't do that to you. Yet."

"Yet?" he challenged, raising an eyebrow, and she smirked, falling into the easy banter they'd perfected in Neverland.

"No, I'll save that for when you piss me off, I'll just cuff you to the chair and force you to watch it."

_"Again_ with the restraints," he said airily, finally closing the book and setting it aside. "I'm not _opposed,_ darling, all you need do is _ask."_

"Saw that coming," she muttered, rolling her eyes, but couldn't quite conceal another smirk behind her hot cocoa, and he chuckled.

"You opened that door deliberately," he countered, and, well, she _had…_

"What can I say? I need _some_ amusement in my life."

It was intended to come out flippant and light-hearted, but she couldn't quite kill the darkness behind the words, and — of course — he noticed.

She hadn't realized how fragile the atmosphere had been until it started deflating; he was watching her face in that damn _knowing _way he did sometimes, like her every thought and fear was written across it, and it made her feel self-conscious (like usual) but at the same time, a little relieved.

(It was sort of nice, to have someone she couldn't hide her emotions from — someone who didn't need to ask — someone to whom she didn't have explain.)

"Nightmares?" he asked softly, and she turned away, taking a deep drink and trying to forget them, still so fresh in her memory that they haunted her like ghosts, visible even with her eyes open.

"Obviously," she replied just as quietly, sighing into her nearly-empty mug, and she didn't mean to go on, but it just _wouldn't _stay down — "I… I almost _shot him_, when he was — when Pan did that _thing,_ I almost shot _my son_, and — "

"Don't," he cut her off, and she glanced over to him. "The more time you devote to thinking about it, the more often it returns and intense it becomes. Leave it aside."

Emma blinked; of course, he _would_ be familiar with nightmares.

"That's easier said than done," she muttered, leaning forward to set her mug on the coffee table; she didn't feel any closer to sleep than when she'd come down here, but figured she should probably try to get back to bed before she had to be at the station in a few hours — but the image, Henry with a bullet wound, her gun smoking in her hand, Henry collapsing, blood on her hands, a scream in her throat, the word _mom_ on his lips —

"Here," he said shortly, motioning for her to come closer. She raised an eyebrow, and he huffed in mild irritation. _"Relax,_ would you. love? It may come as a surprise," he went on as she tentatively moved toward him and he pulled her near so that she was sitting between his legs and her back was flush with his chest, "but I happen to know a thing or two about handling nightmares."

"Do you now?" she challenged, somewhat breathlessly — his voice was very, _very_ close to her ear, which was terrifying and distracting and alluring in roughly equal measure, and reverberated through his chest so that she felt him speak as much as heard him and she wasn't sure why she'd allowed him to do this except that she couldn't imagine walking away right now.

He snickered under his breath and rubbed her shoulder almost absently, and replied, "I do," a little smug and a little something else she couldn't identify.

For a moment, they just sat like that, the silence stretching out long enough to become uncomfortable — he _had_ to feel her growing tension, right? — until Emma decided to get up and leave after all, but then —

"Have you ever heard of Charlotte de Berry?" he asked quietly, and she frowned.

"No."

"You'd like her," he said, brushing her hair away from her ear. "Decided she wanted to marry a sailor against her parents' wishes, so she disguised herself as a man to get aboard his ship. When one of the officers found out, he started placing her husband on the most dangerous jobs, running powder and the like, trying to get him killed so he could have her for himself." He paused to adjust, pulling her a little closer. "But she knew what he was doing, and saved her husband's life more often than not.. until, that is, the officer accused her husband of mutiny.

"The word of an officer holds more weight than that of a sailor," he explained, a little mournfully, "and so he was executed. But when the officer tried to take her, she killed him and deserted."

"Good for her," Emma murmured; the cadence of his voice, something about the sound and the sensation, was almost hypnotic. He laughed, running his hand down her arm to take hers, and began tracing light circles on her skin.

"Ah, it gets better," he said quietly, breath warm on her ear. "She was taken off-port by a merchant ship captained by a nasty brute, ruled his ship with an iron fist, had his whole crew paralyzed with fear, that sort of man — and she'd found herself his prisoner."

He paused for effect, and she played along — "What did she do?"

She felt him smiling against her hair. "Incited the crew to mutiny and declared herself the new captain, of course. I _said_ you'd like her, didn't I?"

Emma chuckled, sinking further into him almost against her will. "Whatever happened to her?" she asked sleepily.

"Last I spoke with her, she was _disgustingly_ wealthy and considering retirement," he replied. "Good woman, one of the very few who've managed to out-drink _me._ I lost a whole pouch of gold and my entire store of dignity when I challenged her to a game of quarters, it was _brutal."_

She laughed; his fingers interlaced with hers and began lightly massaging her hand. "Oh, really?"

"Mm, yes," he murmured. "Woke up half-naked on the tavern roof, _still_ haven't figured out what happened."

_"Damn,"_ she said, snickering, a little impressed. "All right, tell me another."

The words fell out of her mouth without any thought — his voice was both physically and audibly soothing, and she was warm here against him with his arms wrapped around her, and the motion of his hand on her skin was _just_ distracting enough — her eyelids were heavy and she couldn't remember what they'd been talking about before.

He smirked against her hair. "Met a man named Conrad once, never had any other title I've heard, although that might be because he was much like me — wasn't interested in the fame or the power," he explained softly. "Just freedom, and to be left alone. An unsung hero, in my opinion."

"Why?"

"He fell in love with a slave girl in a distant country," he said. "When she was sold into the harem of a wealthy man, he kidnapped her and fought off all the law and the owner's men to keep her safe. And, at her request," he added, brushing her hair away from her neck again, "he went back for the rest of the harem, to set them free.

"Much of his crew resented him for that, claimed that they had a right to the slave girls themselves, and so when he enacted his plan, the buyer caught him and sentenced him to death. They'd betrayed him," he explained unnecessarily, but the details of the story were beginning to blur into the indistinct sound of his voice as the weeks of high-strung sleep deprivation began to reassert themselves.

"The buyer decided that he wanted to marry Medora, Conrad's love," he went on quietly. "Told her that he'd let Conrad live if she did. So, she married him as promised, and on their wedding night, she convinced him to remove his weapons and even allow her to tie him up, at which point, of course, she escaped…"

.

David, not always a morning person, stumbled out of bed and shuffled to the coffeemaker, but paused when he saw that the lamp was still on — did Hook really sleep with the light on? Was he _twelve?_

He blinked when he actually looked at the couch — Hook was laying there, still asleep… and so was Emma, sprawled peacefully over him with his arm around her, resting on her shoulder in much the same way he'd just woken up — and found himself _deeply_ torn.

On the one hand, his fatherly instincts screamed to break up the scene and perhaps break Hook but…

Emma was _asleep._

She might have thought she'd been hiding it well, but he, at least, had noticed the toll the last few weeks had taken on her, how stressed-out and unhappy she'd been, how she was always the last to bed and the first to wake, how she'd woken him up once or twice wandering around in the middle of the night. He knew it had been weeks (or more) since she'd gotten a good night's sleep, but short of going to Whale and getting her some sleeping pills — which struck him as a bad idea for _several_ reasons — he had no idea how to help her.

But here she was, nearly eight o'clock, still sound asleep.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd woken up before her, if he ever had.

Decision made, he crept back to the bed and held a finger to his lips, indicating the couch to Snow's questioning look.

"Emma's asleep," he said softly.

"I thought Hook was — " she started, and he nodded.

"Yeah, but Emma's _asleep."_

Snow nodded slowly and rose to dress, wincing at the squeaky bed springs. "You can take her shift at the station, right?"

"Of course," he replied, dressing as quietly and quickly as possible and making for the door as soon as they were both ready. "God knows she needs it."

"No kidding," she murmured, glancing over the back of the couch before joining him at the door. "Wow, she is _out,_ isn't she?"

David smiled wanly. "It's about time she got some sleep. I'll have to corner Hook and figure out what the hell he did. And also put the fear of _me_ into him while we're at it."

Snow laughed.


	5. what is love

also no prompt for this one, just bumped into me and said hey

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—_but whatever my heart needs around_

.

Emma cursed under her breath, running a hand through her hair as she looked around for a quick, surreptitious way to get the hell out of the situation post-haste, but even in New York City in broad daylight, when the streets were packed with people, running from the NYPD was a _terrible_ idea.

She tried to think up a story — she still had her bail-bondsperson ID from Boston, she could claim that Hook was — no, that would get him arrested, and then they'd see through it when they didn't find any record of him. She could say that he'd left his ID somewhere else, that the outfit was… a costume? Or maybe —

"Who are they?" Hook asked in a low voice, and she determinedly kept her eyes in front of her.

"Police," she replied, and at his blank look, went on, "the law," and he caught on, sucking in a deep breath through his teeth.

"They spotted us?"

"Apparently," she muttered. "Or someone tipped them off."

"Let's hope they merely saw us," he said darkly. "If someone told them, it would mean we're being followed."

"Not necessarily," she whispered. "They could have just — "

"Sir? Ma'am?" one of the cops said, tone clipped and barely civil, catching Hook by the arm to stop them. Emma debated the merits of calling in the 'manhandling of suspects' thing, but decided against antagonism. Yet.

"Yes?" she asked innocently; Hook glared at the officer's tone, but kept his mouth shut.

Small favors.

"Couple matching your description was spotted on A and East 5th near an apartment that showed signs of a break-in," he replied, glancing at Hook with a critical once-over.

"Must be a pretty deserted street," Emma said, raising an eyebrow, and the cop turned back to her, his expression, if possible, souring further.

"Surveillance footage," he explained, hands on hips, "from the lobby. Your boyfriend here… well, he stands out a bit, don't you think?"

_Shit._

She glanced at Hook, trying to work out some story on the fly, but he wasn't looking at her. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked up, scratching the back of his head, wincing as he turned back to her.

"I… _might_ have lied," he said, cringing convincingly. "About where I live."

"What?" she asked dumbly, not sure if he was doing what she thought he was doing — and if he was, she had to _stop him right now_.

"Go on," the other cop said, finally speaking up.

He sighed, still wincing, and pulled a pocketwatch out of one of his apparently-infinite pockets — she'd seen it before, he'd taken it off his ship because he'd noticed she didn't have one and this mission was time-sensitive. "It looked valuable," he explained apologetically, handing it over and holding out his hands, surrendering without a fight. "I'm not exactly… swimming in gold."

"So you were gonna sell it?" the second cop asked, raising an eyebrow and taking it from him, catching him by the wrist and bringing it around his back to cuff him; something in Emma twisted and cut her through as it hit her in a rush — a watch.

He had no way of knowing, he'd probably just grabbed the first semi-valuable thing he had on him, he couldn't know — a watch — it was just a small thing.

"No, this is — " she started, choking harder on the words than she wanted. "Killian, don't, it's not like that, he didn't — "

_"Emma,"_ he snapped, cutting her off and shooting her a beseeching look with a warning in his eyes. "Thanks for the attempt, but I'm the one who stole it," he sighed. "I'll not drag you down with me, love." And then, pointed: "You need not worry over me."

"That's arguable," the first cop said, pulling him away from her and into a car, and he just — he _went,_ he went with them because she needed to take the potion and get this settled before nightfall and she couldn't afford the time it would take to deal with the police and he wasn't strictly necessary and he was taking the fall for her for a crime he didn't even really commit and it was so sudden and it was a _watch._

She couldn't breathe.

The officer shut the door on him and the other looked at her, at her stunned face, and misread it — in her favor, at least, assuming that she obviously didn't know a damn thing about this, or about him, and that questioning her would be a waste of time a busy cop didn't care to bother with.

"He's a pretty one," she said, making for the car. "But look up your dates before you go out with them, _jeez._ You're lucky he's _just_ a thief."

They drove away and Emma fingered the potion in her pocket.

It was a watch.

And she got away scot-free.

.

She had managed to compose herself and prepare by the time she got to the precinct, card in hand — as a bailbondsperson, she'd been paid on commission and, even this far removed from that time, hadn't had much occasion to spend the money in her bank account, so she figured that, unless they were asking an _illegally_-obscene amount for bail, she could pay it. They'd be back in Storybrooke before the court date, and she honestly didn't care if they charged her for the other half.

He was _not_ going to jail for her, end of story.

This was such _bullshit._

(The anger helped.)

"He doesn't have any identification," the officer working the desk said, leaning back in her chair. "No records, nothing. He's lying about who he is, and we're not going to release him until we get the truth."

Emma had expected this, and had pulled a few tricks from her dusty bag to get a fake birth certificate for him, with a faxed-over ID, that she'd called in a (weak) favor with Gold to produce, to sell it, at least for long enough to get him out of custody; it probably wouldn't hold water, but it would suffice for now.

"_I_ have his identification," she explained, handing over the copies. "He left it all in Boston, we came here in a bit of a rush."

She prayed to every god she'd ever heard of that he hadn't tried to make up his own story, or, if he had, that it didn't contradict with hers in any inexplicable way.

"Why didn't he just say so?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "He didn't want to get me involved," she sighed, and didn't have to fake the annoyance. "I'm on a time-sensitive thing here, I guess the idiot thought I should just leave him here until it was over."

"Nice girlfriend you are," the cop mused, glancing over the papers. "He lies to you, steals to impress you, and here you are, all sweetly paying up to get him out." She looked up over the desk in distasteful pity. "He must be something else in the sack," she added in a mutter.

Emma smiled tightly.

"Just let me post bail, please."

"You'll have to wait a bit," she replied. "Gotta confirm everything and set a price. If you're on a _time-sensitive thing_," she went on, sweetly mocking in a way that made Emma want to leap over the desk and beat the holy _hell_ out of her, "you should probably get on that."

"Thank you for the advice," she said coolly. "I'll wait."

The officer left with the papers and Emma sank into one of the chairs, burying her face in her hand. Awful as the cop was, she was right — they didn't have time for this.

But she _couldn't_ leave him here. It wasn't _practical,_ it wasn't _smart, _but it wasn't about him — she owed it to _herself_ to do this.

She had thought all the resentment was behind her, they'd dealt with it in Neverland, they'd dealt with it on the beach, it was _over,_it was in the past… it was still boiling under her skin now she was standing on the other side of it because she wasn't even — she and Hook weren't even really a _thing_ but he'd just offered himself up to help her and — and she was _better_ than that, better than leaving him here because there was something more important at stake — she wouldn't leave him alone to deal with the police and face the consequences for a crime he didn't commit so she could get away.

Emma was better than Neal had been then.

Emma was _better._

The sun had already set well before they came back with a price and she handed it over — too late to get anything else done today, too expensive to justify keeping two rooms for another night in a city hotel — and he was led back out.

And he had the nerve to look annoyed.

"All right, Mister Jones," the cop holding onto his arm said, sounding and looking sullenly bitter. "If you're not there on your court date, your loving girl here will get charged for the rest of the bail, understand?"

"Understood," he replied tightly, jaw clenched almost as tight as hers. "And how much is that, by the way?"

"It doesn't matter," she cut in, taking him by the arm and leading him to the door. "Thank you, officer."

He stayed quiet for about a block and a half, keeping up with her sharp, agitated pace.

"Why did you do that?" he asked finally, voice carefully even.

"I'm not leaving you to rot in jail, okay?" she snapped, and her irritation just provoked him further.

"To the point that you'll compromise this mission?" he replied, almost accusing. "It warms my heart to know you care so much," he went on sarcastically, a bit nastily, "but we're here for a _reason,_and it isn't to waste all of your money getting me out of a trivial situation."

_"Trivial?"_ she shouted, starting to draw attention; she sucked in a deep breath and jerked him into an alley. "Trust me, jail is _not _trivial, especially not for _Captain goddamn Hook_, you have _no_ ID, that crap I just handed over won't hold up. They'll interrogate the_life_ out of you, and if they find footage from Neal's apartment, with you _stabbing Gold?_ They'll lock you up for — for_ever!_ It's not _trivial,_ it's a goddamn _nightmare,_ and you should have let me handle it!"

"You think I've never dealt with the law before?" he snapped back, and she cut him off before he could go on.

"Not like this! You're in a world you know nothing about, you have _no_ idea what you're doing!"

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry for trying to help you accomplish your goals," he snarled. "You had the damn potion, you could have gotten whole nonsense finished with, you didn't need me and you didn't need to waste your time and money fighting with the law. _Now_ what do you plan to do? Waste _more_ time? Every day we're here is another day everyone else is at risk — "

"Since when do you care about everyone else?" she yelled, blinking hard and turning away in frustration, more with herself than with him — he had the higher ground in this argument, and they both knew it; he was angry because he was confused.

And she couldn't explain it to him. It was a story she'd never told, words she simply _couldn't_ force past her lips, now or _ever._

"Honestly?" he laughed harshly, with a sort of bright contempt. "I don't. I don't give a _damn_ about the rest of them, I care about _you, _and _you_ will suffer if anything happens to them. I will not _stand here_ and have you suffering because of _me!"_

She felt like she'd been stabbed in the chest, and reacted in the only way she knew how: with a frustrated growl, she whirled around and slapped him in the face.

It was a _huge_ mistake, and she knew it immediately — he was still furious, but now increasingly wounded, reaching up to touch his cheek in a pain that wasn't entirely physical.

But she couldn't stop.

"I did not ask you for help," she hissed, clenching her fist and shaking with what she desperately pretended was anger. "I did not _ask_ you to sacrifice yourself for me, and I do not _want_ you to. What the hell does it even matter to you, you're a _pirate,_ what do you even care?"

For a moment, neither of them breathed — shit, she had screwed up, and _badly,_ and the look on his face said she might not be able to come back from it — until his jaw clenched and mouth twisted into a sneer.

"As you wish," he said softly, tone belying his expression. "I apologize for the presumption that I might be welcome in your life."

And, without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked away.

.

She was numb we she got back to the hotel over an hour later, hands shaking so hard she could barely slide the keycard into the lock and walk — calmly, breathing shallow, fragile serenity plastered unconvincingly on her face.

Henry was already asleep. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

_God,_ she had messed up.

He was probably already gone.

She covered her mouth with her hand and stared up at the dark ceiling, leaning against the door and trying not to let it all sink in — the _one_ person who had come back for her, supported her when she so desperately needed support, risked everything he had for her without question or hesitation, helped her and protected her and sacrificed himself for her the _moment_ he thought she needed an out, the one who had been _instrumental_ in saving her son — she'd driven even _him_ away.

Even Hook — even _Killian._

The one person she had _finally_ let herself believe wouldn't leave her… and she'd _made_ him leave her.

Tears were hot in her eyes and she tried not to let them fall, biting her lip until she tasted blood; without thinking about it, in a blank, agitated despair, something between hope and self-loathing, she rummaged through her pockets until she found the key to his room.

She needed to see it for herself, the empty space where he should have been, needed to kill that tiny, irrational hope that maybe he'd stayed.

But when she stepped into his room and closed the door quietly, the lamp was on and his coat was slung over a chair, a half-empty bottle of rum on the desk; the shower was running; she couldn't breathe.

Dimly, she walked over to the chair and touched the coat, hands still shaking.

Why was he still here?

Emma sat heavily on the bed, facing away from the bathroom door and staring, sight unseeing, at the curtains.

She'd lashed out, overreacted — and _how!_ — and struck him as hard as she could, physically and verbally, pushed him away with everything she had… and he was still here.

She swallowed thickly and turned her eyes to the floor when the shower cut off, sitting absolutely still as the door opened and he stopped in the threshold.

"Swan," he said dispassionately, and she flinched — he sounded almost like she was leaving Anton's castle all over again. She tried to find her voice, some explanation, some sort of conversation, but her voice stuck in her throat just like she knew it would.

There was only one way to fix this — he would understand. He would — he would _probably_ forgive, if she could just find the words to _explain._

She stayed still as he moved around behind her, apparently dressing but otherwise silent; when he stopped moving entirely, she closed her eyes.

_Just say it._

"It was a watch," she croaked, and clenched her fist into the comforter.

"What?" he asked incredulously. _"That's_ what — "

Emma swallowed hard and bit her lip again, and repeated firmer, cutting him off, "It was a _watch._ A high-end watch, there was a whole set of them," she said tightly, every word cutting sharper than the last. "Twenty grand, easy." She looked up to the ceiling, blinking several times to draw the tears back in, with little success. "We were gonna sell them and start over, go to Tallahassee, get real jobs, a real home, a real — " she choked and swallowed " — a real family."

It took a moment to gather the rest of the story.

God, she wished he would _say_ something.

"He gave me one of them, said we'd keep this one, it looked so — good on me," she went on haltingly. "He said he'd be back later that night, meet me at a parking garage, and then we'd — " she blinked and clenched her jaw. "'Tallahasse, baby,'" she whispered. "That's what he said, _Tallahassee,_ home."

"But the lawmen showed up instead," he inferred warily, and she looked down.

"I thought — someone had called in an anonymous tip, it turns out it wasn't him, but at the time — " she bit her tongue and tried to take a steady breath. "It wasn't even really my crime, I'd — he'd stolen them and hidden them in a train station, and I went in and got them because the police would recognize him, but the tip — told them to check the surveillance footage." She paused, taking several deep breaths and turning back to the ceiling. "I put _myself _on the line to get him out of trouble, and _I_ took the fall when he disappeared, and he just… _left_ me there, in jail — I hoped it was wrong, I thought… maybe he'd find a way to post bail and get me out before the trial, but he never came and I went to prison.

"I lost everything," she said softly, barely above a whisper, "I lost a year of my life, I had to _give up_ my — " she took in a sharp breath through clenched teeth and looked back down, closing her eyes and finally losing the battle with the damn tears. "I lost _everything _because I loved him and wanted to help him."

He didn't reply for a long time, so completely silent behind her that she almost thought he'd never been there at all, that this was all a hallucination or a dream; after a few moments, it was suffocating.

"I'm sorry for hitting you," she said evenly. "It was uncalled-for."

"Water under the bridge," he replied — finally, finally, _finally_ — and walked over to the bed, around to her, but she didn't open her eyes, even as his hand brushed her hair from her face and settled low on her cheek, fingers in her hair and thumb brushing through the tear tracks she refused to acknowledge.

She didn't look up or speak or even move; the moment was fragile, and she was brittle like diamond, always had been — unbreakable except that _one_ weak spot that would shatter it completely and _this_ was that spot, and she couldn't _do_ this in front of someone, she couldn't — she wasn't the girl who buried her face in _anyone's_ shoulder and cried about things she couldn't change — she wouldn't, _couldn't_ give in to it like that.

Maybe he knew (he probably did), because he didn't try to drag her to him or try to make her 'let it out' — all he did was lean up and press his lips to her forehead, fingers tightening against her cheek and around the back of her head. He lingered there for a long moment before pulling away and resting his forehead on hers; the tiny intimacy drew a single sob from her throat that she swallowed before it could grow, and his fingers tightened further, drew her a little closer.

It was such a small thing, but the gaping maw in her chest closed up at the motion.

Finally, she took a deep breath and sat up, away from him, bright like nothing had just happened, like she hadn't just fallen, the one sudden moment the stories talked about —

"Anyway," she said hoarsely, and his expression was unreadable, tense in a way she didn't want to think about (like she wasn't the only one in pain over this), "tomorrow is — gonna be a long day." She stood up and turned away before she could make the mistake of looking him in the eyes. "We should get some sleep."

"Of course," he replied, hand having fallen from her face but lingering on her shoulder; she swallowed against the desire to fall into him like he clearly wanted her to — he clearly wanted to comfort her as much as she needed and didn't want to need him to — and walked away. But then, just as she was at the door — "Emma."

She paused and turned slightly, indicating that he could go on.

"Thank you."

A beat passed before she could reply. "Yeah, well," she breathed, deliberately misunderstanding, "funny as the thought of Captain Hook being interrogated by the NYPD is, I think it would end badly for everyone."

She expected him to play along, but he didn't, instead saying in a low voice, "You know that isn't what I meant."

Without looking back, hand clutching the door handle for dear life, she whispered, "I know," and it took him almost too long to respond.

"It won't happen again," he said; Emma tried to think he was talking about the arrest or the fight or anything else, but he _wasn't _and it was too late to pretend.

She took a deep, shaky breath. "I know."

"Good."

It took an unreasonable amount of time and effort to turn the handle and open the door. "Get some rest," she said lamely, the bizarre need to hear his voice again rising up inside her. "It's been a… _day."_

"It has," he replied, matching her careful tone. "Goodnight, love."

"Goodnight," she whispered, and left.


	6. ace of spades

for moldypoptarts: "noir au where emma is the detective and hook is an ~homme fatale~"

.

—_otherwise it's a gamble_

_._

This one was _way_ too smooth, his whole look _meticulously _designed to look effortless and alluring, hair "carelessly" messy, stubble _just_ at that 'haven't shaved in two days' length, leather trenchcoat, wicked smile and devilish blue eyes and the proclivity to use both to get whatever he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted it.

Emma had had her eye on him for a while; as far as she could tell, he was a mercenary of sorts — she'd caught sight of him working with one crime boss, then another, and then back to the other, and then — out of the blue — here he'd come to _her_ with an envelope and a smirk and a taunt about _information for information, love, I scratch your back, you scratch mine_.

Jones was a wild card, a dangerous character; general consensus was torn between him having some secret personal agenda or just being an amoral son of a bitch who took jobs from the highest bidder, but she'd been trailing him for too long now, figured out his pattern, and, as such, his goals.

He'd work for either side of the Mills' bloody rivalry, and on occasion with Pan, but the only time he was spotted on Gold's side of town, he'd come out of it with a total of seven broken bones, a manic grin, and a _massive_ bounty on his head (something about attacking Gold's mistress) because apparently he had a death wish and a _hell_ of a vendetta with the boss.

It was actually kind of sad.

"What makes you think I'm interested?" she asked, leaning back in her chair and schooling her face into blankness — much as she wanted this man behind bars, the information in that envelope would _cripple_ the legendary Cora Mills.

_"Please,_ darling," he replied quietly, raising an eyebrow and sinking further into the seat opposite her desk; it was one of those slouches that said _I hold all the cards here_, and he was infuriatingly _right._ "You've got nothing on Cora, no one has. You don't even know what she _looks_ like, woman's a bloody _chameleon,_ she could be anyone, _anywhere,_ and that puts you in a nasty position, doesn't it?"

"So exactly what is it you supposedly have?"

"Whole file," he said carelessly, shrugging. "All currently-known addresses and places of work, list of contacts and affiliates — although, my apologies, it's somewhat incomplete — " he shrugged with a wry smirk " — she's _slippery,_ even for me. But enough, if you strike quickly. Hell, I even managed to get her birth certificate, although I admit," he added, amused, "I got that one simply to see if I could, I doubt it has any use to you. But, in the interest of full disclosure, and all that."

She bit the inside of her cheek, trying _very_ hard not to respond too eagerly. That was a _hell_ of a file he'd pulled together, one they couldn't afford to pass up… assuming he wasn't lying through his teeth. "And what do you get out of this?" she asked neutrally.

His smirk turned a little more… _unhinged,_ it was the only word for it, the confident facade flickering for a moment, the shift in his eyes reminding her of his medical file when she'd damn near caught him in the hospital after his run-in with Gold — _death wish_.

"You give me what you have on Gold," he answered, not surprising her in the slightest. "No worries, though, love, I only want copies, you get to keep it all." He leaned forward, and she caught a glimpse down the open buttons of his shirt, dark chest hair and the ghost of muscle underneath — it would have been funny, the man using the woman's technique to distract her, if it didn't work so damn well. "You win in this deal, I assure you."

"Yeah, I do," she said, crossing her arms. "Which makes me suspicious."

He scoffed. "You've been trailing me for months now, darling, don't think I haven't noticed. Nice dress the other night, by the way," he added off-hand, and she clenched her jaw in irritation. It wasn't surprising — if the man didn't frequent such high-end clubs and bars, she would have been able to fit in easier, but the places he hid were the sort for slinky dresses and three-piece suits and exclusive clientele — but it was _annoying._ "Red suits you."

"Thank you," she drawled, rolling her eyes. "You have a point?"

"Ah, forgive me for the digression," he murmured, a little smile on his face as he glanced over her in a way that made her glad she was sitting. "My point is, you know how I function, I've never pretended to be anything but a mercenary. As it happens," he went on, shrugging, "this time, _you_ have the reward I seek."

"Yeah, and when you turn on me, tell Cora I'm the one threatening her now?"

"You _wound_ me, love," he said, and actually sounded sincere. "What good would that do? If she finds out you have this information, who do you think she'll suspect is the source?"

"What if you're setting me up?"

"Why are you so unwilling to trust me?" he countered, leaning back again and watching her with intense interest. "I'm being honest, it's a simple transaction that benefits both of us. I've nothing to gain from turning on you, and, in fact, quite a _bit_ to lose. And, again, you've seen enough of me to know I don't traffic in lies when the truth will suffice."

Emma still didn't trust him, although she was beginning to wonder how much of that was because of his reputation or because of his (potentially-successful) flirtation. She sighed and stood, rifling through her cabinet until she came up with _Gold, Robert_, and held it out. "Copier is right there," she said, pointing at it and reaching out with her other hand for his file, which he passed to her with a grin.

"All on the level, my dear," he said in a low voice, taking care to brush against her fingers when he took her file and passed her his. She ignored the electric rush under her skin.

A quick glance through the manila envelope confirmed that he'd been telling the truth, everything he'd said would be in there — birth certificate included — right where he'd said it would be.

_All on the level_.

Nothing was ever this easy.

She watched him copy all of her papers on Gold and slide them into a new envelope — that she hadn't told him he could take, but whatever — until he finally turned to her with a flourish and an almost-boyish smile, taking her hand like an old-school gentleman. "Pleasure doing business with you," he murmured, kissing the back of her hand and making her breath hitch in her throat. "Hope to see you at the Rabbit Hole tonight," he said louder, winking. "I'd love to see what _else_ you have in red."

She raised an eyebrow and did her damnedest to look unaffected by the warmth of his hand or the ghost of his lips (and, judging by the look on his face, failing). "Just get out of here before I catch hell for this," she snapped, and he bowed, still grinning.

"If the lady insists," he replied, and walked out the door.

The grin on his face was so _genuine._ Mercenaries like him never looked that happy, and _rogues_ like him were never as sincere as he'd looked when he mentioned the Rabbit Hole. No one with eyes _that_ blue or pants _that_ tight had good intentions.

(It was, even she could admit, a whole lot of weak excuses.)

She pressed the intercom button and leaned into it. "Nolan?"

"Yeah?" came the response from the deputy at the front desk.

"Killian Jones is about to be right in front of you," she said, heart pounding in her chest with a deep feeling of _this is wrong_. "Take him into custody, would you?"

"Sure thing."

Emma released the button and exhaled, the guilt already setting in.


	7. ruffled feathers

for asyouwishemma: Lieutenant Jones meets a very naughty princess who likes to ruffle his feathers.

.

.

He was required by law and his code of honor to be polite and respectful to royalty, particularly royalty of countries that were not his own, but this damn princess was going to be the death of him.

She had decided — apparently upon seeing him for the first time — that he was entirely too high-strung for his own good, and that she should fix this by engaging in a lopsided and quickly-escalating plot to make him break form and throw something at her, or burst out laughing, or — as he was now discovering, tactic number three — make him jump her bones.

"But Lieutenant," she said lightly — not _purred,_ no, nothing so obvious, nothing he could immediately and safely dismiss off-hand — and toyed with the tassels on his coat, "when will I ever see you again? You're leaving tomorrow, and I feel like I don't even know you yet."

He was running out of reasons to keep his hands off of her — he'd spent the first hour repeating to himself that she was a _princess_ and putting his hands on her might _actually_ get them cut off… but _she_ was coming onto _him,_ with an appealing glint in her eyes that was captivating and irresistible and _gods above_, she was beautiful and practically sitting his lap, and no one was around, and if she didn't stop this right now it would become _really obvious_ how much she was affecting him — and then she would _win,_ and after this whole week of enduring her torment, he _couldn't_ let her win.

He was having a lot more trouble convincing himself that walking away from Princess Emma and Princess Emma's wandering hands would, in any realm, be considered "winning".

"Honestly," she went on, more seriously, trailing her hand over his coat and making a show of inspecting the details, "I won't tell."

"I will _lose_ my _rank,"_ he hissed, refusing to look at her. "You'll forgive me for being unwilling to risk such a thing."

"Not if I advocate for you," she countered, and he finally glanced at her — she looked completely honest. "Seriously, you think I'd let you hang for this? _I'm_ the one pushing it. And," she went on, glancing down, "you need it."

"I do not _need_ — " he started, more belligerent than sincere, but she cut him off.

_"Please,"_ she drawled. "I've never met someone else with such a _huge_ stick buried up their ass, if there's anyone in the world who needs to get laid, it's _you."_

He glared at her. "You say that as though you believe me a _novice _at the act," he challenged, giving up the naval officer part of him and stepping closer to her; the look on her face said she did, in fact, think he was.

"Prove me wrong," she murmured, and he was _done for. _

"With _relish,"_ he growled, pulling her with him into the nearest closet.

He'd wipe that smug grin off her face if it was the last thing he did, dammit.


	8. dream a little dream of me

not prompted, but swirled around in my head so much after that finale.

.

.

—_so open up your morning light_

.

The dreams begin right around the time they move into the new apartment.

Sometimes, they're innocent, tasting vaguely of memory; a woman with short, black hair laughing with her over a movie and a glass of wine, or a nightmare of watching Henry calling a different woman "Mom" as he walks away from her.

Other times, they're less innocent, and less familiar; a man kissing her with breathless passion, pushing her back onto a bed, fingers slipping between her legs. It's always the same man, black hair and striking blue eyes and stubble and these bizarre details, a missing hand and a tattoo on the other arm, a vague impression of an accent rough in her ear, cold metal of a ring on her inner thigh.

It's unsettling, and she always wakes up with a sense of _disappointment,_ disappointed that it isn't real, he isn't real.

"I'm telling you," her coworker says over their lunch break, "he was a lover in a past life. I know a medium, she can look into it for you, tell you who he is."

"Past lives?" she repeats, raising an eyebrow in skepticism. "Seriously?"

"Look, I'll go with you. I'm curious, too. Who knows, maybe I was someone cool in a past life, you never know."

She rolls her eyes, but it's so specific — _he's_ so specific — that she can't think of a better explanation. "All right, I'll bite," she says, throwing up her hands. "Tomorrow? Around 2, before Henry gets out of school."

Anna grins. "Sure!"

.

The medium looks exactly like Emma would have thought a medium would look — an "office" smelling strongly of nag champa, bangles and long curls and floor-length skirts — but when she talks, she's surprisingly reasonable.

"I know," she laughs. "It sounds strange to the uninitiated — I thought it was a load of crap the first time someone mentioned it to me, too. But there are some things that simply defy all other explanation. Anna said you're having dreams?"

"Yeah," she replies uneasily, taking a seat and looking around. "Same guy, all these weird details."

"What sort of dreams?"

She blinks. "Um."

The medium catches on, with a knowing "ah" and looks away with a little smile. "Well, they say that some loves are strong enough to transcend lifetimes. If you'll come with me…"

Emma follows the woman into a warm room, feeling like a total idiot, and sinks into the couch, a plush, overstuffed thing that's so comfortable it should probably be outlawed by the Catholic church as an agent of sin, while the medium turns on a white noise machine, setting it to a soft, distant rush of the ocean.

"You'll have to relax, love," the woman says quietly, and something jolts inside of her at the term of endearment.

She _is_ pretty on-edge, she reasons. This whole thing is just _bizarre._

"Close your eyes," the medium murmurs, and begins directing her through doors and light and the dream, as much as she's willing to tell (_not damn much_, not to a total stranger); she tells her to describe the man in as much detail as she can remember — but the more she tries to grasp his image, the more it slips away.

"It's all right," she says soothingly. "Don't fight it, just move on. You said this isn't the only dream, who else do you dream of?"

In the end, she doesn't feel much better — all they settle on is that she was alone in that past life too, that she's a wandering soul always looking for a family, a home, _love,_ but, "in that life, you found it," the medium tells her with a smile.

"Why do I dream that I'm losing Henry?" she asks fervently, and the woman places her hand over hers.

"That's not residue of a past life, Emma," she answers, sympathy in her face, the sort of sympathy that unnerves her, especially coming from strangers. "That's good, old-fashioned anxiety. You said you nearly gave him up for adoption, didn't you? That dream, I think, is just the lingering fear and guilt, what might have happened if you hadn't changed your mind. It's natural," she adds warmly. "Everyone worries about what might have been, if they'd made a different crucial decision."

"It's just so… specific," she mutters, running a hand through her hair. "Always the same woman who adopted him, she's… _evil."_

"Of course she is," the medium replies, and squeezes her hand. "As I said, it's your fear that breeds that dream. You're _afraid_ that he might have ended up in an abusive home, rather than with a loving family. It's all right."

She sighs; her words make sense, but they don't strike true. Maybe, she thinks, maybe she's just being paranoid.

"Well, thank you," she shrugs, standing up and wiping her hands on her jeans.

"If you have any questions, don't hesitate to come back," the medium says, standing and hugging her — Emma fights the urge to recoil, touchy-feely people _ugh_ — with a smile. "You have such an interesting mind, Emma. There's a lot of pain in your past, but a lot of good, too. I hope you can reconnect with that, in time."

"Yeah," she murmurs as she leaves. "Me too."

.

She dreams of him again that night, his lips hot on her skin and his voice in her ear, a rough chuckle and a muted _Really, Swan, resorting to seers to find me?_ but the dream fades into white noise soon after she wakes up.

.

"My life continues to make no sense," she tells Anna, tossing her bag onto her chair. "Some crazy, hot… _pirate_ guy showed up at my door yesterday morning, babbling something about my family being in danger? And he kissed me."

"Kissed you?" Anna repeats, incredulous. "What, like, 'hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?'"

She rolls her eyes. "I don't know, I kneed him in the balls."

_"Really?"_

"What would you have done?" she counters, aghast at Anna's disbelieving tone. "Made out with some stranger at the door?"

"Well, you _did_ say hot," Anna says, shrugging. "How hot are we talking? Like, 'yeah, I'd do you if you the occasion came up' or 'get in my pants _now'?"_

_The second one_, she thinks, and coughs. "He was wearing leather pants," she says by way of answer; Anna laughs.

"Did he pull them off? I mean, did they work?"

"I wasn't exactly checking out the goods," she replies, rolling her eyes again. "My son was in the kitchen, I'm not just gonna… drag some crazy guy into my bed because he's pretty."

The really bizarre thing, she thinks but doesn't say, the _really _bizarre part, is how _familiar_ he seemed.

He called her 'Swan' — not Emma, just _Swan_ with a familiar inflection, but she can't remember where she's heard that tone before.

.

He's waiting for her when she leaves the office for lunch, leaning against the wall like a holdover from a different era, and when he spots her, he holds up his hands in supplication.

"Hear me out," he says immediately, and she opens her mouth to tell him to go to hell, that she really _is_ going to call the cops this time, but then she looks at him and —

He's missing a hand.

The words come out of her mouth in dumb shock, and she takes a closer look at him — black hair, _check,_ gorgeous blue eyes, _check, _missing hand, _check,_ rings, _check,_ stubble, _check, shit shit shit shit_ — and an odd, closed expression comes over his face.

"Yes," he replies shortly, "I am. It's a rather long story."

Rough accent, low like sweet nothings — _check._

_He isn't supposed to be real_.

She can't breathe; she doesn't even hear what he's saying as she stumbles forward and grabs his right wrist, wrenches his sleeve up to see — tattoo, _check._

It's _him,_ there's no doubt, the man she's dreamed of — but he's supposed to be part of some past life, long-dead from a time she's reincarnated out of, or whatever nonsense psychics sell. He's not real, he's not — he isn't _real._

He's also picked up on her panic. "If we've never met before," he murmurs, fingers closing around her hand in an almost tender way, "how did you know I had that tattoo?"

She stares at it blankly — Milah, _Milah,_ that name is familiar —_ my first love, my Milah — someone from long ago_ — she blinks and the memory fades.

Abruptly, almost convulsively, she snatches her hand away from him.

"This isn't real," she breathes, and he tries to catch her by the arm, but she wrenches it out of his hand before he can grasp her.

"Emma, please, _listen to me_ — "

She _can't._

.

"He's real," she gasps to Anna, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her to the break room.

"What?"

"He's _real,_ the man — the one I've been — _dreaming_ about — it's — Crazy Hot Pirate Guy, that's who he is, I — I didn't get a good look at him the first time — "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," Anna says, holding up her hands. "You're telling me that this guy is _real?_ And _alive?"_

"Yes! He was — he was standing outside, he tried to talk to me. It's _definitely_ him, missing hand and tattoo and _everything."_

"Outside?" Anna repeats, and presses Emma into a seat. "Look, I'll go talk to him, figure out what he's after. You're _kind of_panicking."

She returns a few minutes later, whistling in appreciation. "You weren't kidding about hot, _Jesus,"_ she mutters, and Emma glares at her. "Okay, okay, he said he needs to talk to you, it's important. He wants to meet you at the cafe on the corner to discuss whatever's going on. He was kind of cagey about that, but he apologized for going to your apartment, said if it made you feel better, he'd only talk to you in public from now on."

It does, sort of.

"He seemed… really…" Anna muses, and finally winces. "I can't figure out the right word. Pining? I don't know, he seems really worried about you."

"I don't even know him," she gasps; Anna makes a face.

"Maybe you do?" she says softly. "He was talking about amnesia, and you've been dreaming about him, and… well, he definitely knows _you._ I asked him some questions, and it doesn't come off like he's stalking you, you know? He has no idea where Henry goes to school, but… he knows Henry's father's name."

A jolt of horror strikes her straight through. _"What?"_

"I'm telling you, he isn't lying. He _knows_ you." Anna sits down opposite her, worrying at her lip. "I think you should meet him. If you want, I'll go with you."

"No," she says slowly. "I can take care of myself."

.

"Who are you?" is the first thing she says to him, sitting hard in the chair opposite him, hoping to exude an aura of _I will not be taking an ounce of shit from you_; if it sticks, he doesn't react to it.

"My name is Killian," he replies. "Killian Jones, I'm a… friend."

"Yeah, that's cute," she snaps, "except that doesn't tell me anything."

He takes a deep breath. "Your memory has been tampered with," he answers slowly. "To be honest, my dear, I would have left you be," he goes on, with a slightly self-loathing glance away, "if it wasn't a matter of life or death for your family."

"Why?" she asks, crossing her arms; he raises an eyebrow.

"Well, to start, you're happy, aren't you?" he says quietly. "I've no desire to disrupt that. Quite the opposite, really," he adds, with a short, breathy, and wholly insincere laugh. "You've had far more than your fair share of tragedy, love," he murmurs, and her breath catches in her throat at the word. "You deserve a happy ending, even if that necessitates my absence."

"You say that like we're a… _thing."_

He winces, scratching the back of his head. "I had hoped so," he admits finally. "Although I never had the chance to…" he trails off, melancholy and somewhat miserable, the phrase _might-have-been _given voice.

The dream rises up in the back of her mind, the _sense_ of it, how it feels different than all the others, and dimly, she wonders if maybe — theoretically, assuming Crazy Hot Pirate Guy isn't full of shit (which he _is_) — she had once hoped, too.

She tries to blink it away, but it's hard, sitting across from him, hearing his voice, watching his lips move, to banish the phantom sensation of that stubble brushing against her lips, her neck, her thigh.

"I don't…" she starts softly, and glances away. "You know I can't believe you."

"Why not?" he challenges, just as soft. "You recognized me, some _part_ of you remembers me."

She's overwhelmed by the feeling of being _cornered,_ and very suddenly, she _has_ to leave.

"Look, this is just — this is _nonsense,"_ she says, standing up and looking around for an escape; in spite of the fact that they're sitting at a sidewalk table, literally _surrounded_ by places she can run, she still feels like she'll never, ever get away from him.

And worse, she can't shake the feeling that she doesn't _want_ to.

"Emma," he pleads, standing up and reaching out to touch her but backing off at the last moment. "Swan, please — "

He says her last name like a secret, some private history shared between lovers in the night; it frightens her at the same time that it thrills her, piques something sweet in her memory.

He's telling the truth, and she knows him, and he's right, some part of her remembers him, and Anna is right about the yearning, the way he looks at her as if the sun has come out after years of winter; he's been haunting her and he lingers under her skin and she _can't_ — he _can't_ be real.

"I'm sorry," she cries softly, urgently, retreating like a coward; his face falls; she runs. He calls after her once, such a familiar sound, but she doesn't turn around.

.

She dreams of him again, pulls him closer as desperately as she pushed him away in reality, repeating herself over and over, _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, please don't leave me_, and he forgives her without words, fingers tracing abstract shapes into her skin; _you need not worry, love_, _I'll always come back to you, I'm yours_.

When she wakes up, her pillow is wet, and she can't quite remember why.


	9. dream a little dream of me part two

part two of three

for the record, since we don't have a character name yet, "chris" is christopher gorham's character

.

—_don't you drink their poison too_

She dreams of the day Henry was born, so familiar: she glances to the side and Neal is there and he's smiling and they're _happy,_ and she looks back at Henry, heart so full of love she can hardly breathe; she looks back up and it's the stranger — _Killian,_ that was his name — standing beside her with that soft look on his face he was wearing when she opened the door. The bed dips as he sinks into it beside her and cups the back of Henry's head as she leans back into his arms.

He kisses her temple and she wakes up.

.

"I saw that guy again," Anna tells her, and Emma chokes on her coffee.

"What?"

"Crazy Hot Pirate Guy," she explains. "He was at the cafe on the corner, I stopped to have a cup of coffee with him. He's actually pretty cool," she says thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a pen. "Real old-school gentleman, he paid for my drink and a scone and stood up when I got out of my chair, the whole thing. Also introduced himself by kissing the back of my hand, which — I don't know if you know this — is the _hottest thing in the entire world._"

"Well, you can… have him," she replies, even though the thought of the man kissing Anna turns her stomach and she can't say why. Anna sees through her, giving her the classic _bitch please_ look. She (badly) feigns ignorance. "What?"

"Even if I — look, Emma," she starts, finally getting up and joining her, leaning on her desk, "you've been dreaming about this guy for a _year._ And… the way he's talking about amnesia… I know we were talking about past lives and obviously he's not from a _real _past life, like reincarnation, but," she goes on, leaning forward, "if he _is_ from some past you can't remember — and the way he talks about you, I would bet my entire bank account — "

"All seven dollars of it," Emma mutters petulantly. Anna glares.

"_Like I was saying_, if he's telling the truth and your memories _have _been tampered with — "

"By _what?"_ she cuts in, using volume to hide her unease. She's been a skeptic her entire life but this is… like the psychic said, it defies all other explanation. "Some shady government agency? A cackling witch in the woods somewhere? 'Tampering with memories' is something that happens in _movies,_ Anna, not reality."

"_Like. I. Was. Saying_," Anna snaps shortly, crossing her arms. "Then he really _would_ be part of a past life, which would explain the dreams. Whoever messed with your memories couldn't _quite_ erase him. He _obviously_ meant something to you."

"Anna," she sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose to both stave off a headache and hide the fact that she's starting to think Anna might have a point. But that doesn't make _sense._ "You need to stop with all the conspiracy theories. First the moon landing is a hoax, now some shady — _someone_ has messed with your friend's memories… Anna, you _have_ to stop believing everything you hear."

Anna stays quiet for a long moment, and when Emma glances up, the guilt starts to sink in — she looks genuinely _hurt._ Finally, she takes a deep breath and pushes off her desk.

"It's better than believing in nothing," she says softly, and walks away. But she catches herself at her own desk. "Oh, by the way," she adds, much colder than Anna's ever been to her, "I told him you've been dreaming about him."

_"What?"_ she cries, eyes widening. "Why would you — "

"Because he deserves to know," she counters loudly, completely uncaring of the stares coming from their coworkers. Emma is too horrified to be embarrassed about them. "He deserves to know that it's _not_ a lost cause, that the woman he loves hasn't _completely _forgotten him."

_The woman he loves._

She could hardly deny it, but she isn't sure she likes having it so explicitly spelled out to her. "He doesn't _love_ me," she replies weakly, and Anna scoffs.

"Keep rocking that denial, girl."

.

Anna still hasn't forgiven her by lunch — Emma can't really blame her, she _was_ unnecessarily harsh — and the idea of eating the little frozen dinner she brought for herself makes her nauseous, so she makes the (stupid, inevitable) decision to go to the cafe, justifying it with _if he was there this morning at 7:30, surely he won't be there now_.

Even though she knows damn well he will be.

She isn't wrong.

For half a second, she considers joining him, but then takes her own table inside, feeling his eyes on her the whole time; when he doesn't follow her in, she's honestly surprised, and a little disappointed.

Just as she's thinking that she should stop kidding herself, that she _has_ to go and talk to him again, if only to lie like a rug and tell him that Anna was lying about the dreams, one of her other coworkers shows up, looking out the window uneasily.

"Who's the leather fetishist staring at you?" Chris asks, and Emma waves a hand.

"Just some crazy guy who keeps trying to get me to help him with something," she replies dismissively. "Thinks I'm… I don't know, it's weird."

He stares at her in slowly-growing horror. "Emma, some lunatic is _stalking_ you? Why haven't you called the police?"

"No, it's not — " she says hastily, holding up both hands in supplication. "It's not like that, he's not — I don't think he's stalking me."

"Then what's he doing here, half a block away from your workplace?"

"Chris, he's harmless."

"What makes you think that?"

She can't explain it. She only told Anna about the dreams because she dragged her out to drinks one night and Emma had about three too many, ended up drunkenly divulging secrets like the (heavily censored) story of what happened with Henry's father and the fact that she was having explicit dreams about someone she didn't know.

Through no fault of anyone's but the bartender who supplied her with entirely too many whisky sours, Anna knows her better than anyone else. Chris doesn't have the same kind of security clearance, in spite of and in part _because of_ how desperately he wants it.

"He… It's just a gut feeling," she answers, wincing at how lame that response is. To her total lack of surprise, he doesn't look convinced.

"Well, _my_ gut says otherwise," he counters quietly, honestly and _extremely_ concerned. "Look at him, Emma!" he hisses, glancing at the window; Killian is no longer watching her. "He's _obviously _dangerous. And probably some kind of freak, who wears that much leather in the middle of the day?"

"I dunno," she mutters, "I think it's kind of hot."

Chris doesn't seem to know how to respond to that, which is what she was hoping for; maybe if she makes him uncomfortable enough, he'll leave.

It's not that she doesn't like Chris, or that they aren't friends — after Anna, he's probably the closest friend she's ever had — but it's clear that he wants more and she doesn't, and now — with the man from her dreams showing up outside her door and kissing her — she feels particularly awkward around him.

"It's fine, Chris," she says, gathering her things and standing up. "Really."

As she leaves, she notices that Killian is gone.

.

He's there at the cafe when she passes by the next morning — but he's busy flirting with the waitress (who clearly has the _opposite_ of a problem with the leather) and doesn't appear to see her. She tries to swallow the irrational jealousy, with little success.

.

He's there again at lunch — and she's figured it out, she thinks: he's spending all this time at the cafe because he promised not to go to her apartment again and he doesn't want to just linger on the sidewalk outside her building. But the weather has been nice, the cafe is close and gives him a good excuse to stay close to her — and it's up to _her,_ whether or not she wants to talk to him.

She hesitates, but finally decides to go over to his table; she doesn't sit, instead standing at the chair opposite him, hands planted on the back of it.

"Why is it so important that I listen to you?" she snaps. He blinks, apparently unfazed by the lack of pleasantries.

"Because the people you love — little though you may recall them — are in danger," he replies simply.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say," she says, injecting her tone with as much dismissal as she can. "But what does that matter to _you?"_

He seems to deflate a little, sinking further back into his seat, expression pained. "Don't make me say it, love," he murmurs, self-loathing increasing with every word.

A black hole opens up in her gut; her heart clenches and the breath is pulled from her lungs and her fingers go a little numb and she doesn't know why this is affecting her like it is because Anna _said_ this, she quietly _knew_ this, he's made no effort to hide it.

_"Why?"_ she explodes, and it's obvious, it's written on his face, on the flinch and the wince, that he knows what she means. "Why _me?_ My life was going just _fine,_ until you showed up and — and _screwed everything up!_"

He glances around at the people staring at them now and stands abruptly, and she gets the odd sense that he's being sucked in by the same black hole, he's got the same sort of tense motion and shallow breathing. "Let's not do this _here,_ shall we?"

She almost tells him to go to hell, but the gravity between them is too strong; if she leaves now, she'll just come right back. "Fine."

They walk down the street aimlessly, somewhat awkwardly, until he finally stops on the edge of the park and pulls a bottle of purple liquid out of his pocket. "I know not to hope you'll believe it," he starts quietly, turning it over and over in his hand, "but this potion… it _should_ restore your memories."

"You're right," she snarls, "I _don't_ believe it."

He looks up as though praying for answers to fall from the sky, and slips the bottle back into his pocket. "Emma, the very _last _thing I want is for you to come to any harm, I swear it. I've already told you, I wouldn't be here, had I any other choice. Look at me," he says desperately, turning to her and looking her straight in the eye; an electric shock dances across her skin, "have I told you a lie?"

She starts to ask him how he knows about that, but catches herself — he'll just tell the same story, and, at any rate, the way he asks that question strikes something _deep_ inside her, the same familiar lurch she felt when she saw him at the door. Less than memory, more than déjà vu.

Emma can't keep up the anger; the look on his face is too sincere.

It's hard to breathe.

"Just because you believe something doesn't make it true," she replies in a low voice; he deflates again.

"Emma — " he starts, but doesn't get anywhere.

"Freeze!"

She's just as startled as he is; two cops are coming closer, guns raised. The one who spoke waves his gun at Killian, who holds up his hands, expression wooden. "Step away from the girl."

"Wait, what is this?" she asks, staring at them in mounting… _fear. _Fear for him. She's _afraid_ that something bad is about to happen to Crazy Hot Pirate Guy_._ "It's fine, I'm not — Look, officers, I don't know who called you, but he's not _threatening_ me."

"Caller said you might say that," the other officer replies, pulling Killian's arms behind his back and cuffing him. "Said the mad leather junkie here somehow had you convinced he wasn't gonna hurt you."

"He _isn't,"_ she snaps.

"So why's he trying to get you alone?"

Killian glances at the cop then, in affronted confusion, and gets out, "I'm not trying to — " before the cop jerks on his arms sharply to shut him up.

"Look, the guy who called us said he's been stalking you, is that true?"

"I — " she splutters, because the answer is both yes and no. "Not — I wouldn't call it _stalking…"_

The officers, not surprisingly, aren't convinced; in fact, quite the opposite — she can practically _hear_ the words _Stockholm syndrome _passing between them when they glance at each other.

"Right, well, you got into a bit of a fight at the cafe back there," the first cop says, and she scoffs.

"I wouldn't — that wasn't a _fight,_ I just — "

"Just to be safe," the other one cuts in, and they're already leading him away.

She tries to catch his eyes as he passes, and insists, "I didn't do this, I swear, I _didn't_ call them."

He glances back at her, expression brittle. "I never thought you did," he lies.


End file.
